Dao of Wisdom

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We take for granted how fast and cheap information is transmitted and obtained nowadays.

It seems possible to access more in a single day than our ancestors did in an entire lifetime! Is this good or bad for our minds, emotions, bodies, relationships, societies?

The potential for learning and progress to improve our lives is present more than ever at our very fingertips. Yet, has this led to actual learning and progress?

Many neglect to consider side effects of hoarding too much (and the benefits of offloading) mental inventory. A primary symptom in our Information Age is memetic gluttony. As a wordsmith, I shall call this glut of and greed for information: Infobesity.

Indeed, physical obesity is multifactorial including circadian disruption, financial access, and emotional trauma; however, one compound issue is improper input, inefficient throughput, and insufficient output.

Metaphorically, just like we can carry extra grams of fat in our bellies from excess bites (especially intaking manufactured foods indoors under blue wavelength dominant LEDs, particularly after sunset), we can carry excess bytes of data in our brains; in either case, more than is necessary let alone beneficial.

We need not shame or hate ourselves for indulging sugary meals and silly videos on occasion. Nevertheless, we rarely feel stellar afterwards. Moreover, we displace capacity for imbibing more edifying alternatives. Ideally, given an almost unlimited 24/7 menu to order from, best to watch, limit, pause what we intake with our eyes, ears, mouths alike.

The five colors blind our eyes
The five sounds deafen our ears
The five flavors numb our mouths
Galloping hunts craze our thoughts
Rarifying products harm our actions

五色令人目盲
五音令人耳聾
五味令人口爽
馳騁畋獵令人心發狂
難得之貨令人行妨

Dao De Jing 道德經
Chapter 12 第十二篇

(Translation by Paul C. Wang)

As one example of media production quantity, how many hours of content are uploaded to YouTube per hour? Estimates vary, but some sources say 30,000 hours! And that is on a single content creation website before the burgeoning tsunami of AI fabrications fully floods.

Speaking of, I recently heard of the term “AI slop”, which reminds me of made-up, semi-edible, low-quality, food-like material bulk ladled to livestock in farms, students in schools, patients in hospitals, or prisoners in jail. It may look, smell, and taste good, though be deceptively devoid of bioavailable nutrients for satiety and wellness.

Ponder another perspective of our roles as commodified participants in late stage capitalism. Are we consumers? Or are we being consumed — our attention, time, energy, identity, sanity, humanity.

What you consume, consumes you.

Another neologism I minted as a conceptual exercise is: Informitis. Its suffix refers to inflammation, which is a normal immune response to threat or damage from a pathogen or injury. This displays fourfold as 紅腫熱痛 Hóng Zhǒng Rè Tòng, Rubor Tumor Calor Dolor, or redness, swelling, heat, pain, respectively. A fifth sign is loss of function.

When we burden our psychosomatic systems with more information than they can sustainably metabolize, symptoms arise to alert us, akin to triggering a fire alarm which first buzzes then blares. Our cornea reddens, our nerves distend, our face flushes, our neck aches. And our sense of discerning reality from virtuality malfunctions or even downright fails.

Chronic inflammation degrades immunity. Similarly, Informitis makes us more prone to cognitive infection by external influences such as headlines, soundbites, advertisements, propaganda, deepfakes, simulacra, psyops, groupthink, doublespeak, gaslighting, strawmanning, fearmongering, false flags, mass formation, social contagion.

There is a healing antidote to discern these tactics but we have dismissed her medicine.

Comorbid with Infobesity and Informitis is atrophy (wasting away or literally “no food”) or anorexia (incapability to ingest or literally “no appetite”) of wisdom.

This realization prompted me to create another portmanteau: Sophiatrophy. Sophia means wisdom in Greek and is personified as a goddess. Although she still patiently sits at our modern table, few acknowledge or consult her. Because she seems quaint, outdated, foreign, like an immigrant in a strange land, most shun or scorn her. Hence, she is severely malnourished and nearly in need of emergency resuscitation, perhaps eventually miraculous resurrection if we wait much longer.

Sophia is us; as an aspect, characteristic, feature of being human that requires gradual cultivation to bloom within. Her archetypal wisdom is a skill, art, virtue. One we have neglected or delegated.

Just like a calculator displaces our mathematical proficiency and GPS erodes navigational competence, are we also sacrificing our reasoning, linguistic, artistic, creative aptitudes by hiring surrogates to think, read, write, speak, draw, compose for us? What if how to choose and feel become outsourced because moral decisions and empathic awareness are deemed too difficult or inconvenient?

Wisdom is costly and slow to gain. Information may be easily and rapidly accumulated. However, this outer knowledge of quantitative information is incomparable to inner knowing of qualitative wisdom.

Now, nothing is wrong with information per se, except there is little guarantee of its accuracy, potency, relevance. It is mere raw material. Wisdom is the mature ripening of carefully curated information into embodied integration and relational application.

Lamentably, what most people look for is information and not wisdom, with a false equivalency of the two. Not recognizing the difference, we can spend years searching but never finding. This is because what we crave is random, immediate, newfangled, entertaining information, even if what we need is patterned, seasoned, timeless, meaningful wisdom.

I think of the vast difference between a rehydrated bag of instant noodles inhaled on the go versus sitting down to savor a multidimensional bowl of sublime black garlic sapporo tonkotsu simmered overnight at my favorite ramen shop.

The suffix -dom means “the state or condition of”. We use it in free-dom, bore-dom, star-dom. Can you imagine growing wide your wisdom into a kingdom of the wise, by the wise, for the wise?

This energy field of radiant wisdom is stable, grounding, quiet yet powerful, whereas the energy signature of grasping information is frantic, dizzying, noisy yet unsatisfying. What type of energy do you embrace and emanate? Is it from your head and heart? Will it help you but hurt others? Does it invoke fear or love?

On that note, allow me to share one final coinage that came to me: Sophilia. Philia is a kind of love present in true friendship witnessed as an affinity of mutual reciprocity. Therefore, if Philosophy is “love of wisdom”, then Sophilia is “wisdom of love”.

Due to overexposure, many of us develop a sort of information allergy with negative reactions such as inflammation, hypertension, depression, anxiety, even AI induced psychosis.

Perhaps a remedy is more “(g)no-ing” rather than more “know-ing”.

A solution to both Informitis and Infobesity is reduction and regulation of information in(di)gestion. If slurping digital gloop is like gorging on processed junk food, then healthy eating would be (ana)logging offline and absorbing Nature. Basking sun, barefooting earth, breathing trees are directly anti-inflammatory.

The age old method of fasting is also germane. When ill, even wild animals instinctively do so according to their natural intelligence. In Daoism, an analogous psychospiritual practice known as 心齋 Xīn Zhāi is sacred abstinence of cerebral rumination in order for silent wisdom to dawn. Thus, treasure teachers, elders, masters, communities, cultures who incarnate this luminosity.

And become wiser yourself!

For Dao to balance & Qi to flow,
Yin & Yang must give & take.
If not, disharmony & chaos arise.

Daology unfolds the mystery and mastery of our story. To help navigate change, clear blocks, avoid detours, reverse dead-ends, fulfill destiny in your lifelong journey, I heartfully handcraft these Dao articles based on three decades of training, treating, teaching thousands worldwide.

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